Syrian American Activist Mona Haydar Has a Powerful Reason for Wearing a Hijab

In less than a month's time, Mona Haydar's powerful music video, "Hijabi (Wrap My Hijab)," has skyrocketed to nearly a million views on YouTube. Since then, life has changed drastically for the Syrian American activist and artist, who has become a voice for Muslim women who want to wear their hijab proudly and without judgment.

"I definitely didn't expect the video to do what it has," Haydar says over the phone as she tends to her six-week-old son (she was eight months pregnant with him in the video). "It's my first attempt at music!" It's no small feat, given that the married Haydar also has a three-year-old and is currently getting her master's in theology. "Welcome to my daily grind!" she says with a laugh.

But Haydar's reason for creating the video was no laughing matter. After an incident on an airplane prompted her to turn her pain into art, Haydar became intent on spreading her message: We're all deserving of love, regardless of gender, race, or religion. "I've always been really inspired by Prince. That's one of my treasure boxes," she says of the beloved artist.

So what's next for the 28-year-old? She hopes to have an EP out by the end of the summer, and then her future album—titled One—will drop after that. "I want to give as much as I can…by building a more kind world with my music and with my daily life."

Here, she tells Glamour how she's planning on doing that.

Glamour: How are you trying to bring about change through the video?

Mona Haydar: I’m excited by the fact that it’s normalizing the narrative of Muslim American women and women in general. For young Muslim girls, to see a girl that looks like her mom in a music video, who doesn’t have a stick-thin body, who isn’t wearing gobs and gobs of makeup, who is just a normal woman doing normal things in a video, [is so important]. I’m just really excited that that’s out in the world for young girls to see and feel like, "I can look like whatever I want and be in a music video, and nothing can stop me."

Glamour: What inspired you to make the video in the first place?

MH: The whole song came from getting on an airplane. From the moment I stepped into the airport—Muslims deal with this thing of you're suspect just because you’re a Muslim—so I walked on to the airplane, and it’s like you’re a spectacle. Everyone just has to stare. I don’t know if I’m projecting that onto people, but I’ve heard people say before, "Don’t blow up the airplane!" They think that’s so funny, but it’s deeply inappropriate and highly offensive. That wasn’t what happened this time, but having had those experiences and people just staring at me as I’m walking on and imagining those thoughts running through their heads. So I sit down at my seat, and the flight attendant doesn’t ask me what I want to drink from the beverage cart. I genuinely will shy away from confronting people, but I’ve made a new promise to say something in the moment so I don’t hold anything in my heart against people. And I also try to limit my sugar and caffeine intake, so having a Coke is a real treat. So I said, "Excuse me, I’d like to have a Coke." She didn’t say anything or smile, but she poured me a cup of Coke. I just thought, I don’t want any Muslim girl to feel this way. To feel ignored or cast aside. I just never want anybody to have that heartache. In my head I have this thought that everyone thinks Muslims are terrorists and maybe I just am and haven’t realized it yet? Like how scary is that thought? To wonder if you actually are something that you know deeply you are not. I just want no one to ever think that. So I wrote the song right then and there.

Glamour: Do you remember the first time you wore a hijab?

MH: It was the summer before seventh grade. I was riding my bike and feeling my hair flying in the wind, and it was a moment that I realized I wanted to start covering it. I went home that day and told my mom, and she was like, "Whatever you want to do, we’ll support you, and if you’re not, don’t worry about it." It was shortly thereafter that they threw me a big party, and we danced all night.

Glamour: Do you feel a sense of pride when you step out of the house wearing it?

MH: It is like a badge of honor. It’s a spiritual discipline for me and a spiritual practice that I’ve taken on. I wake up, put on my scarf, I go to work or school, and for me, I’m walking out into the world with the full consciousness that it’s my decision and my choice. I feel so empowered by that. It’s about liberating myself from standards that people want to put on women. To say that you’re only beautiful if you have highlighted hair or your makeup looks like this or your contour is so sharp, I’m just out here like, We can be beautiful in all of our shapes and forms.

Glamour: I love your confidence!

MH: It took time. Puberty and adolescence is hard. I was obsessed flipping through magazines, and I wanted to be every girl in the magazines. It was a challenge, but as a young woman I just decided that I was going to love myself and that I deserved to love myself. I have a really strong and powerful mother. She’s just such a loving human.

Glamour: With all the positive feedback you’ve gotten for this video, what are some of the more frustrating responses you’ve received? What do you find people miss the point about?

MH: There has been a lot of positivity, but the negativity, it feels like it’s been 50-50 with people hating on it and people not really getting it. One of the things that has been really frustrating is people just not listening to the song and then having something to say about it. A lot of those people tend to be male-identifying. And just saying things like, "Look at these poor, oppressed women who are so brainwashed, buying into a religion that basically says if they don’t wear [a hijab], they should be killed." Reading that and hearing that, [I say], “Well, actually, that’s a product of your own patriarchal and misogynistic values and not a representation of my faith.” For me, as a Muslim woman, I know my intellect and my ability to choose this for myself. They don’t know me, and they don’t know my life. For them to assume those kinds of things, their privilege is showing. It’s showing that, just don’t believe for a second that a Muslim woman could be anything more than a poor, oppressed woman who needs saving. I must be brainwashed if I’ve decided to do this to myself. Well, how about I’m just a woman who has made a decision that I feel like is good for me? How about you consider that? And leave women the f-ck alone? How about that?

Glamour: If you could spend 10 minutes with the President, what would you want him to know?

MH: [Laughs.] That there is enough love in the world for all of us, and we don’t need to restrict our love to any gender or any limitations, be they border, be they genders, whatever. Those limitations are not necessary. I live by that, and I see that in action every day of my life. People can change the world by living their lives as love. Share a meaningful moment with a stranger, and I really believe that is a moment of enlightenment.